On Wednesday, October 16th, OPIM Innovate was invited to share its technologies at the annual Research Connections event. There, at Werth Tower, the initiative gained traction by making itself known to early-career undergraduates who had not yet been exposed to the lab. The purpose of Research Connections is to help UConn students find potential research opportunities and give exposure to projects that usually span across campus. “We thought it would be a great idea to showcase,” said Innovate Lab Manager Robert McClardy Jr. (CS ’20). “We want to help students explore their ideas and we have the resources to do it.”

During the Research Connections event, McClardy and other OPIM Innovate lab specialists networked with interested attendees. Many students from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering stopped by the booth. The exchange proved to both parties how universal the initiative can be–everyone has the potential to innovate. “We connected with quite a few students and hopefully they’ll come check us out sometime,” said McClardy. These students interacted with the technology and end-products on display–namely virtual reality headsets, drones, and 3D prints. “To encourage brainstorming, we told them about some of the projects we’ve done in the past,” added the lab manager. “Everything starts with an idea.”

We thank everyone who stopped by our booth at the Research Connections event! For more information on OPIM Innovate, stop by our website!

On Friday, October 4th, the Operations and Information Management department hosted its annual MIS Case Competition. Focused on exposing UConn students to real business problems, the competition asked participants to work together in order to create and defend potential solutions. This year, the case surrounded Connecticut Bank, a fictional financial institution attempting to enhance its security measures to further bypass the consequences of identity fraud. Biometric technology was the main focal point across teams–from fingerprint scanners on credit cards to voice authentication for mobile banking applications and call centers.

Throughout the day, each team expressed their business solutions to a panel of judges in the form of a 15-minute presentation. Each presentation was followed with 10 minutes of Q&A, where judges tested teams on their ability to think on their feet. “We asked [students] difficult questions, not because we wanted to give [them] a hard time, but so we could expose [them] to [an additional challenge],” said judge Craig Calvert. The best teams were those who evidently rehearsed their slides and supported each others’ answers when appropriate.

During the Awards Dinner, which followed the competition, students were thanked for their participation. While not all teams walked away with a cash prize (the top award being $500 per person), they each had the courage to tackle the challenge. All teams were given one week to research and design their slides on a topic that is still emerging and, to an extent, theoretical. They had to crunch numbers, scale technology, and generally think for both the bank and the consumer.

Not all winning teams were well acquainted with case competitions. In fact, the first-place team was composed of two first-time competitors: Julia Moody (MIS ’21) and Dean Perkins (Management ’20). Named The Buzzbees, both used their trust in each other and honest feedback to pave their way to victory. “I gained confidence as we went through the process of practicing,” said Julia. “I also learned that having team members with different perspectives can really make a difference in a project.” After Dean and Julia were awarded their first-place certificates, Dean had this to add regarding his experience: “I feel a little bit surprised, but I knew we put the effort in. Our greatest ally was planning and…practicing. We picked on each other and looked for areas of improvement. By the time we got to [the competition], we were relatively calm.” Dean and Julia had a third member of their team who had to drop out due to health reasons, further emphasizing the strength of proactive teamwork.

We would like to extend a warm thank you to those faculty members who volunteered their time to help make the MIS Case Competition a reality.

Interested in the MIS Case Competition? Stay tuned for the next round coming up in Fall 2020.

On Friday, September 20th, 20 students from various academic disciplines joined together to celebrate the Fourth Annual MIS Case Competition Kick-Off. Run by MIS Program Director Jonathan Moore, the Kick-Off introduced these prospective participants to the general rules of the competition and other students (in case they still needed team members).

Interested in participating in the MIS Case Competition? You still have until September 25th to register your team.

For those of you who couldn’t make the Kick-off, no worries! Here’s the information you missed!

On Thursday, September 19th from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM, OPIM Innovate hosted its first data analytics workshop for the upcoming Hanover Image Analytics Challenge. This first workshop, run by Adjunct Professor Ryan O’Connor was “Intro to Data Analytics.” As in the workshop’s name, O’Connor briefed students on the concept of data analytics, presented examples of real-time data collection, and introduced data analysis and visualization tools such as Splunk, Tableau, and Python. There were 40 students in attendance, making this first workshop an incredible success.

As part of the workshop, and to gauge students based on their skillsets and level of interest given certain topics, O’Connor asked everyone to participate in a Splunk demo. After visiting a URL, they were able to answer multiple-choice questions such as “What interests you the most about Big Data?” and see their results in real-time. From responses to questions like the former, as well as from proficiency-based ratings, O’Connor was able to assess potential topics to be covered. He, for example, asked students if they would be interested in learning more about the tools they were more unfamiliar with. This gave students the ability to help shape their own learning.

As stated by O’Connor at the onset of the workshop, there are “tons of options out there” with regard to solutions for the Hanover Challenge. “We’re working with Hanover to give you an experience where you can get exposure to data analytics while working on a real business solution,” Tara Watrous, the project coordinator for the Hanover Challenge, further explained when she introduced the Challenge to students. It is meant to be flexible and open-ended–many proposals can be valuable to the company. However, as stated by O’Connor, “Some of the most challenging problems will be in data cleaning and preparation.” Students must learn how to reap valuable data before analyzing it. The Hanover-sponsored workshops will assist them with both.

While anyone can participate in the Hanover Image Analytics Challenge (and gain at least $100 for doing so), it is also available as a 1-credit elective (OPIM 4895-033). If you are interested in participating in the Hanover Image Analytics Challenge for credit, please fill out an Add/Drop Request Form as soon as possible. For it to be approved, you must have it signed by your advisor and Jonathan Moore. The window of opportunity is closing, so now is your chance!

On September 18th from 6-7 PM, 35 students from all academic backgrounds came to celebrate the onset of the Hanover Image Analytics Challenge at the Homer Babbidge Library. There, they were briefed on the rules of the Challenge, the roles to be assigned to each team member, and the schedule of events. Leading the Kick-Off was MIS Program Director and OPIM Innovate founder Jonathan Moore, who kindly summarized the information in a PowerPoint.

Did you miss the Kick-Off? No worries! Here’s the info you need to catch up!

While anyone can participate in the Hanover Image Analytics Challenge (and gain at least $100 for doing so), it is also available as a 1-credit elective (OPIM 4895-033). If you are interested in participating in the Hanover Image Analytics Challenge for credit, please fill out an Add/Drop Request Form as soon as possible. For it to be approved, you must have it signed by your advisor and Jonathan Moore. The window of opportunity is closing, so now is your chance!